A close look at COVID protocols for kids at Wake County schools shows parents play a key role

Traditional calendar students in Wake County Public Schools are counting down the last days of summer break. The new school year is starting at the same time COVID cases are rapidly rising.

WRAL's Matt Talhelm got a look at Carpenter Elementary School in Cary to show us what the school day will look like when kids go back to class Monday.

Carpenter is a year-round school, so students have been in the classroom here for more than a month. They've had two confirmed COVID cases in students out of 450 kids.

County-wide, masks are required inside the schools and, like the sign says outside the school, visitors are kept outside.

Student desks are side-by-side in the classrooms. Spacing them out is no longer required by state guidelines. The kids in this third grade class are seated in groups.

“The first week was definitely a struggle with keep your mask up, don’t put your fingers in your mouth and just things like that, but they are definitely picking up on it. They already know the routine, they know the rules, our procedures.” Diann Tucker, 3rd Grade Teacher.

Those kids stay together throughout the day to limit interactions that could lead to more students having to quarantine if there's an exposure to COVID.

“I just have to believe what they’re telling me about them doing as much as they can to protect the kids to keep them apart and everything.” said Kenny Wade, Parent of a 2nd Grader.

The principal at Carpenter Elementary, Fay Jones, credits safety protocols and parents for keeping kids on campus healthy.

"They have really done a good job of monitoring their individual students health and children’s health at home so we can manage the situation here," said Jones.

One big difference this year - students who have to stay home because of a COVID exposure will not have access to virtual learning.

Each school will decide on a case-by-case basis how to keep those children learning from home.

The school system says there will also be differences in how the protocols are put in place at each school depending on scheduling and space limitations.